An experiment, if you will

I propped my two-year old cold frame up on bricks as the fall subsided so that the wood would not be in contact with the earth and rot. It's been really wet in the northeast ever since we moved into our house, and I spent a little too much money on it to let it degrade quickly.

However, with the cold frame up on bricks, the bricks began to settle and leave gaps where the warm air built up during the day would escape at night. My father-in-law gave me the idea of using pipe insulation to fill in the gaps, so today I went to the garden/hardware store, bought pipe insulation and cut it in half. I ended up balancing the cold frame on the entire thing, so now it looks like this:

It's not great-looking, and I'm not even sure it will work. (Right now there is a three degree difference between the inside and outside, but I lost most of the warmer air when I had the cold frame open today and was installing the insulation.) And not all sides are still air-tight. (In the front I had to put extra foam.) For $5, it' an experiment, and I'll see if it helps. I should probably get out there with a shovel and leveler- that might help the bricks set straighter... but I'm not that motivated yet. Besides, I'm just trying to push the season a little bit at this point, since I should be able to use it no problem starting next month.

The next project, for a warmer day, is to stain the wood to further protect it.

Have you ever tried to jerry-rig something to make it work in the garden?